Season 2, Episode 2: ‘Cobbler’

Let’s get straight to it: “Hoboken Squat Cobbler” is not a known, categorized sexual fetish. At least that was the case, according to the Internet, the day before the airing of this episode. No doubt the Urban Dictionary will fill this void soon.

For now, it’s safe to say that Jimmy McGill invented the term as he improvised an alibi before a pair of skeptical Albuquerque detectives. Which suggests I am wrong to think Saul Goodman has yet to show up in “Better Call Saul.” Because what we witnessed here was Saul at his finest — a man lying with a magnificent fluency, on behalf of a criminal.

It was my favorite scene of this very young season. I particularly loved the notion that as convincing as Jimmy was, the cops apparently ended the interview less than fully persuaded that a lover’s spat, and the aforementioned fetish, explained the home robbery of Daniel Wormald, the world’s most irritating naïf.

“You’re going to have to make a video,” Jimmy tells Wormald as they leave the police station.

We aren’t treated to the conversation that followed, sadly. Instead, the next scene is Jimmy telling Kim Wexler about the entire charade as the two nibble a pie, described by Jimmy as “a leftover prop.” Any other show would have faded to black on this impish, triumphant note. But Kim grasps that Jimmy’s afternoon of adventure could jeopardize his job at Davis & Main, the firm that has just hired him.

“They’re never going to find out,” Jimmy says.

“You sound like every dumb criminal,” Kim retorts.

She has a point. Jimmy had been summoned to represent Wormald by Mike Ehrmantraut, who broached the subject by asking a question that hovers over much of this show: “You still morally flexible?” Given his flexibility, one is tempted to say that joining Davis & Main was a mistake, that Jimmy is now as out of place as a carnivore at a salad bar. But there are always shades of gray in the universe as imagined by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, the show’s creators. When we watch Jimmy as a legit lawyer, he is superb. His elderly clients love him, his boss, Clifford Main — a guitar-playing Ed Begley Jr. — is impressed by his insights, and he is both smart and entertaining when describing the class-action case to colleagues.

For now, Jimmy has a permanent address in the realm of respectability, and is also ready for piecework in the netherworld. He is ambidextrous, morally speaking. My hunch is this season will track his efforts to live on both sides of a line that he surely can’t straddle for long. It’s also safe to assume that Chuck McGill will try hard to make Jimmy’s equipoise impossible. (Tellingly, it’s right after a conversation with Chuck that Jimmy agrees to take Wormald’s case, and lie to the police.) When Chuck learns, early in the episode, that Jimmy has a partner-track job at Davis & Main, he can hardly control his rage. In case we missed it, we are treated to the sort of slow-burn glower usually found only among riled Iagos in productions of “Othello.”

I’m just going to say it: I’ve had enough of Chuck. He slows the show. Heck, there was even a metronome on hand for his opener, which just underscored exactly how much the man drags down the pace. Plus, I prefer the “Breaking Bad” model, which largely stuck to one villain per season. (I know, I know: Villains like Gus Fring lasted multiple seasons. But Gus was vastly more fascinating than Chuck.) Far from disappearing, Chuck attended a meeting at Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill just to discomfit Jimmy. Or as he balefully told his younger brother, “To bear witness.”

But must we bear witness to Chuck’s witness-bearing? I can’t foresee much fun in it.

I was much more entertained by Mike’s visit to A to Z Fine Upholstery, a shop where Nacho Varga has a day job working for his father. Mike has come to persuade Nacho to return Wormald’s baseball cards, which Nacho stole from Wormald’s home, along with some drug-deal cash. Mike is getting nowhere until he threatens to reveal to Tuco Salamanca, the homicidal alpha dog of Nacho’s gang, that Nacho has been cutting deals and pilfering on the side.

That does the trick. All that’s left is an exchange — Nacho hands over the baseball cards, Wormald hands over that preposterous Hummer, which is headed to the chop shop.

“Looks like a school bus for 6-year-old pimps,” Nacho sniffs, refusing to even drive the vehicle away. (Well put, sir.)

A to Z Fine Upholstery is a legit business, run by a scrupulous man. (“And don’t try to upsell him, O.K.?” Nacho’s father tells his son in Spanish.) But it is just a place for Nacho to collect a paycheck as cover for the mad stacks, to use one of Jesse Pinkman’s favorite terms, he earns as a thief and dealer. In this regard, the subplot brought back the “Breaking Bad” trope of a criminal underbelly, hiding in plain sight, something “Better Call Saul” could stand to do more often.

Albuquerque’s villainous underground was sometimes literally subterranean in “Breaking Bad” — think of Krazy-8 bike-locked in the basement in Season 1, or Gus Fring’s meth lab beneath his laundry company. But the show also had a remarkable ability to mythologize utterly mundane parts of that sun-baked city, like “The Sopranos” did for northern New Jersey. I wanted to visit the restaurant that served as the setting for Los Pollos Hermanos because it took on a mysterious grandeur by serving as a front for Gus Fring. (It’s actually just a fast food joint, once you wander in. But still — it’s kind of thrilling.)

In moments like the police station scene and Mike’s negotiation with Nacho, “Better Call Saul” is still better than nearly everything else on television, but it lacks the same evocative sense of a hidden, sinister Albuquerque. I can’t think of a “Better Call Saul” setting that I’d like to visit. This is perhaps because none of them are home to a devious, outsized sociopath, but it might also be that the writers aren’t interested in the kind of illicit thrills they crafted in “Breaking Bad.” (“Cobbler” was written by Gennifer Hutchison, a former “Breaking Bad” writer.) So far, “Better Call Saul” is a far more interior show. It raises similar questions about ethics and human nature, without the body count.

I’m not simply arguing for more shooting, though it wouldn’t bother me to see more weapons. I just wonder if this show’s general lack of urgency and visceral kicks — or anything equally compelling to take their place — might start to work against it. Is anyone dying to catch the next episode? What is that you can’t wait to find out? What open questions do you yearn to have answered? Aside from “What does that light switch in Jimmy’s office’s actually turn off?” I’m kind of blank.

Yes, a love story is emerging with Kim, and yes that love story will be complicated by Jimmy’s wayward inclinations. Other than that, the only real reason I look forward to Episode 3 is the show’s track record. Season 1 proved “Better Call Saul” can flex its dramatic muscles, vigorously, at any moment. Hopefully it will. Soon.

Let’s hear your thoughts. And can any lawyers out there explain something? Kim is amused by the cobbler-related lies Jimmy told the cops, but she’s horrified that he made a video to back them up. It’s the video that incenses her, and makes her worry about Jimmy’s future in the bar.

Why? Is it O.K. to lie to the cops, as long as you don’t produce physical evidence of that lie? Is the videotape worse than the lie it was made to support?

Oh, and is anyone else off pie for the time being?

Correction:Feb. 29, 2016

An earlier version of this recap misspelled the name of a law firm in “Better Call Saul.” It is Davis & Main, not Mane.